Updated: BCS Computers

Quick note to those freaking out. The computers are basing a lot of the rankings right now on predictions and not the actual level of performance. Note the Sargarin has Texas A and M at #12. This will drop when the computers readjusted from predictions to actual results last week. This is why Michigan is all but assured in assuming LSU takes care of business.

Clarification on what is happening. The BIg 12 went 20 something and 3 for out of conference (which is a heavy basis for the intitial computations). Hence the inflated rating at the moment, the readjustment will take place at the end of the year, with the in conference wins/losses are taken into consideration.

This is why you do not have to worry about Baylor as much as you should. Although it would be comforting if they were to lose because I have only been speaking to the Saragin computer and who knows what the others are doing.

But, this is all avoided by moving up a tick or two in the human polls which carry significant more weight.

Saragin, bless his heart, tries to explain it in the link. But basically they switch the way they calculate the teams, but that it not reflected until later. That is why a team like Texas A and M is at #12 because they are calculated under the old measurement, and not to new one which kicks in halfway? through the season.

**Note I am trying to find the article where Saragin expressed concern via this manner, and basically said he wants it to update weekly. His poll has not changed much at all for the past couple of weeks.

I hope that you are right, and that Sagarin's rankings will change a lot in this last week, but I went back and looked at 2010. Specifically looking at how teams in 2010 moved in Jeff Sagarin's rankings before and after the final week of the season (the time we're currently at). From my examination, only two teams moved more than 3 spots in either direction. Nebraska dropped three spots after losing to 7th/5th ranked Oklahoma, and Arizona lost to unranked Arizona State. It doesn't seem like there was much movement if there was some adjustment. Thoughts?

Most likley not. Simplistically, most of the computers used a predetermied weight for the conferences (hence the Big 12 getting a huge boost). These are not recalculated until the end of the season though, and with non-conference teams that the Big 12 played not doing so hot, they are all expected to take a hit outside of Oklahoma and Okie St (which have the benefit of the human polls).

The Sagarin ratings I'm looking at are for "College Football 2011 through games of November 26 Saturday"

That would seem to include A&M's result on Saturday.

To confuse me even more, the Sagarin rating that's used by the BCS is the ELO rating, because the Predictor and the combined Predictor+ELO ratings use point spread and thus don't conform to BCS regs. In the Sagarin/ELO A&M is 18th, not 12th as claimed.

For the first few weeks of the season, the starting ratings have weight in the process(BAYESIAN), but once the teams are all WELL CONNECTED, then the starting ratings are no longer used and all teams are started equal and the RATING, ELO-CHESS, and PURE POINTS (PREDICTOR) are then done in an UNBIASED manner from that point on.

The teams are now WELL CONNECTED and so all three ratings are UNBIASED.

Any errors caused by the initial estimates of team and conference strength were adjusted for several weeks ago. I don't know if that's true for all the computers used but it's definitely true for the Sagarin. As soon as all teams in the system are connected by a common opponent, at whatever remove, the prior weightings are removed. I'm guessing that's typical of these systems but don't know for sure.

but he states that the overall rating is a "synthesis" of the ELO and the predictor. However he's combining them, it doesn't seem surprising that the overall ranking would be somewhere between the two.

Strength of schedule includes losses as well as wins and their losses were to quality teams. I'm looking at the Massey, which hasn't been updated for Saturday yet, and their five losses were to teams ranked 3,6,7,10 and 20. Two of the losses were in OT, two others were 30-29 and 42-38. To a computer that considers spreads and not just w/l that would look pretty good.

Scoring margin is not a factor, at least not in Sagarin's poll that the BCS uses. A&M could have have lost six 58-0 games and still be ranked ahead of every BiG team.

They should throw Sagarin's crazy ass out of the BCS formula. He's been doing this for a long time and if he can't avoid ridiculous outcomes by now, he's just incompetent. They no longer consider margin of victory, in part because his formula used to overvalue it to a ridculous degree. Now he has the Big 12 teams ranked 1-10 in strength of schedule because they play each other. That's based on a handful of competitve non-conference games and leads to 6-6 A&M and 7-5 Missouri in his top 20.

Computer polls are supposed to use criteria similar to the human voters, but without the bias. When 5-7 Texas Tech is three spots behind Wisconsin it should be obvious even to Sagarin that his algorithm is a worthless piece of crap.

Basically because Georgia's higher in the computer rankings so it's harder for them to move up. Pretty much everybody above them also won so they stayed where they were; State was able to pass Clemson and Penn St.